Why remembering wars is a moral concern for all of us

Over the past few years, it can't have escaped you that we've been commemorating the Centenary of World War I.

In London in 2014, 888,246 ceramic poppies were installed in a stunning display at the Tower of London, representing Commonwealth soldiers who died in that conflict.

Closer to home, the Australian government has budgeted $83.5 million for a program of commemorative events and war memorial restorations.

But what's the point?

Philosophers have expended mountains of paper in writing about war, particularly about when it can be justified, and how it should be fought. But comparatively little thought has been paid to the issue of remembrance.

The history of war is often interesting — from depraved tales of Nazi atrocities to epic feats of heroism — but historical fascination hardly seems a strong enough reason to justify the kinds of society-wide remembrances and commemorations we've been involved in.

Are there stronger, perhaps moral, reasons for remembering conflicts?

Debts of gratitude and bonds of citizenship

One reason commonly given is that historical commemorations are to pay a debt of gratitude to those who have died fighting to protect "our way of life", or advance our values. But what about where the soldiers fought a war on our behalf that we now regard as profoundly unjust?

The Vietnam War is a case in point. Those who died fighting it may have intended to do good, or may have been conscripted, but gratitude hardly seems the appropriate reason for commemorating.

Further, if the point is to commemorate wars which were most causally significant for the way of life we enjoy today, perhaps our debt is much greater to those who died in the Battle of Hastings, or innumerable other wars long forgotten by most people.

A second common justification is that remembrance helps bring our political communities closer together, and strengthens the bonds of citizenship.

Attendance at an Anzac Day ceremony, or a cursory look at how stories of Gallipoli have shaped our collective sense of identity, seem to bear this out.

As the historian Anna Clark points out, history is often political because of the way it shapes how we think about ourselves as a nation. But that strength can equally be a weakness.

This justification for remembrance encourages us to only reflect on only those aspects of our past that we consider laudable.

It ignores the risk that commemoration will be whipped up into nationalistic fervour, or used to support unjust practices — just as commemorations of the "Great Patriotic War" were used by Soviet authorities to bolster support of Stalin's despotic regime.

Remembering to realise 'cosmopolitan' values

So, what then are the moral reasons for remembering wars and their dead?

One justification comes from the philosopher Cecile Fabre, the author of Cosmopolitan Peace. In her view, national borders and political communities are irrelevant when it comes to the rights and duties we have as individuals.

According to Fabre, remembrance is justified when it helps us realise "cosmopolitan" values — for instance, by helping us recognise the universal moral significance of all humans. Commemorating events like the Holocaust, or the two world wars, can help us do that.

Further, remembrance might help us avoid conflict in the future, by shining the light of history on the darker aspects of our nature.

Fabre says that wars often reflect the worst of what we are capable of doing to one another. If we fail to remember wars, we fail to remember "that which in us is capable of such wrongdoing".

If remembering wars "serves as a reminder of the horrors of war and helps us to keep in view the moral requirement to not senselessly sacrifice lives, then of course we should do so".

There are echoes of this sentiment in the writings of the 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who argued that "the chief use of historical study is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature".

Keeping the worst of human nature in check

In my view, the wars of the past can reveal our tribal nature, our hysteria and tendency to sheepishness, and the role of honour and over-optimism in fuelling conflict.

In no other area of human life is learning those lessons more important than when they concern war.

The history of wars reveals how we get into them, why we keep fighting them, and what we do to justify cruelty and destruction visited on others.

Good history also helps humanise the past, by telling individual stories and engaging our empathy. In doing so, it can help us keep in mind the moral tragedy of war.

Theodor Adorno once remarked that humankind had become cleverer but not wiser, pointing to the evolution of the spear into the modern missile.

While destructive power has changed greatly over the past few centuries, our human nature has not. By keeping our psychological tendencies in mind, and understanding how they can be used to fuel conflict, we can help keep those tendencies in check.

As the philosopher Jonathan Glover writes: "History enables us to look hard and clearly at some monsters inside us, but this is part of the project of caging and taming them."

Reflecting on our heroes and our enemies

At the same time as we recognise the depravity of what has occurred in war, we should also keep in mind that there may have been compelling moral reasons for fighting.

As John Stuart Mill wrote:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse … As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.

In the end, as the military historian Basil Liddell-Hart remarked: "War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it."

When you next have occasion to consider a war of the past, take a moment to reflect not only on those who have died fighting for us, but for those who died fighting against us — the horrors experienced by all, and what we can do to avoid such horrors in the future.

The minutiae of war might not reveal much, but a broader understanding can teach us something about ourselves.